Seattle Author

I love stories that have a lot of characters whose lives intertwine and are told from all kinds of angles. Mainly I see this happen in movies, but sometimes it can be done by a novelist. Here’s Erica Bauermeister’s debut novel – a Seattle author, whose book is set in Seattle – The School of Essential Ingredients doing just that.

This is the ideal rainy day book. The fact that I read it cover to cover one such evening after work should attest to that. This book was a gift from my aunt, who also read it with great enjoyment, and, before passing along the gift, my mom read it, too. (Don’t worry, she told both parties of her intentions which were accepted all around!) That in itself shows it’s a fun read.

Bauermeister’s characters all end up in this class, some with very unusual reasons, and get to put together meal after meal. One class each month from fall to spring – just long enough of a term to allow each student’s point of view to show up once. I actually love to cook as well as bake and last night I tried the sketchy description in January’s class of a bolognaise sauce! As was described, I poured milk, quite a lot, into my ground beef and wondered what would happen. What happened was great spaghetti (of course it was, I used my own frozen tomato sauce from last summer’s produce).

Also, with the truth of any class that is long enough to get to know your classmates, but is also significantly finite, each story has an open ending. Each student has made one or many decisions to propel their future. It certainly makes me want to know what’s on the menu for next year!

Orthodox Heretic?

First, I did exactly what the author, in his preface, requested I not do. I breezed through The Orthodox Heretic in a couple seatings. Second, I judged the book, as well as its author, Peter Rollins, by their respective covers.

Why do authors put pictures in the back of the book? I’ve asked that a hundred times. I’ll ask it a hundred more. Why do I have my picture on my blog? (Actually, it’s only because there was a spot to put one when I set out the title and my name.) Perhaps it’s only another thing to tick off to send to a publisher: name, book title, book content, return addressed stamped envelope, photo.

Enough about the picture, now on to the actual writing. Lots of good disclaimers made in the introduction. Well, these could be parables, if they mean anything. Well, I could be interpreting them, but art speaks for itself. I love it. And I laugh at it.

Pretty much, according to my reading of Rollins’ parable tales, he’s doing a study on Jesus’ parables. One of my favorite/most frustrating parables of Jesus’ was the Good Samaritan. Although there were no retakes on that, nearly all of Rollins’ parables touched on service, the poor, and the ‘wrong’ ending (which is probably part of the definition of a parable).

I do wonder, though, as a Trinitarian Christian, how Jesus was left out (unless one counts reusing Jesus’ parable, which the reader would have to already know). This may be petty, but there were a lot of tales about heaven and reward, not even veiled as “there was a landowner” or something, making the reader have to agree to the idea of afterlife. Not Sadducee friendly stories.

I appreciate how so many tales determined that the everyday character is wasting his life. (Incidentally all the tales were about men; no women finding coins here.) I particularly enjoyed the tale of the scholar changing to a life of service once he’d established, by God’s self-revelation, that God does not exist (p 104, Agnostic to Atheist). There was also treatment of religion getting in the way of faith and needing to be stopped for life to begin (p 57, Finding Faith). Also thought-provoking was a story about how the power of a great gift elicits a heart change at last (174, Reward). Yes, Rollins got at this from many angles.

The ones I’ve mentioned I enjoyed and found interesting. However there was one that just grates (p24, Salvation). The character is more or less completely believable. The tale is a lot like Les Miserables, where the priest gives more than even what was stolen. Yes, there are people (not often me) like that. But in this story there is a demon who is destroying everything while the priest calmly prays. Ultimately the demon asks to enter the priest’s heart. The priest welcomes him. This unprecedented hospitality ultimately defeats the demon who can’t bear to act on his own request and leaves dejected. The priest maintains his resolve to praise his Lord no matter what test comes his way. (I described the ending more to my theological tastes than the author did, in case you read it and think I got it all wrong… J)

This is a tale which I’m sure I’ll never forget… even if I somehow neglect to exercise the hospitality of the priest.

New Recipes, New Policies

Eric Kayser’s New French Recipes have regretfully brought back the sourest of childhood memories. Incidentally it has nothing to do with Kayser, really. It has to do with me not getting around to things. I’ve had Kayser’s cookbook since December. I checked it out from the library and have neither cooked from it nor written about it. Happily I have looked through it, especially at the sweeter recipes, which is why I’ve insisted on keeping it despite the pile-up of late notices and reminders in my email inbox.

It turns out someone else wants this cookbook, as well. Someone in Seattle, which means possibly someone I know. I wish I could keep it, but here I am at the library sending it away to its next home. (Should you wonder if this cookbook is worth asking for from your library, I think – yes.)

New recipes, perhaps, but not so new as to sound unpalatable from the get-go. The organization is exciting as Kayser is originally a bread baker. He concentrates on three French categories, four if you’re a Seattleite: Grains, Seeds, Dried Fruit and Nuts. I’m certain the recipes are good because the ingredients are so delicious and the pictures, go Clay McLachlan, are making me just crazy hungry!

A couple of the things I’ve learned just reading the recipes are that this would be useful for people who don’t want gluten in their diet. Grains include wheat, but are not defined by it. Another interesting adjustment to old recipes is the use of brown sugar, which in France would invariably be cassonade. These are not the same. American brown sugar is far superior in taste and texture – hurrah for us!

Policies have also come into play. I sat down to write about a cookbook, unobtrusively, I believed, in the library. It turns out that Seattle Public Libraries have a “Public Use of Children’s Areas Policy” which conceivably bars me from writing further of Kayser’s recipes because I was in the wrong section of the library. A librarian exercised her newfound right to expel me from sitting where Dr Seuss stories are on the shelves as I cannot prove to have brought a child with me. This offends me deeply, and I believe I will share a comment with the City Librarian’s Office for this disruption to my exceedingly important blog.

No doubt the sour memory with which I began arose from being surrounded by otherwise happy childhood things. Apparently this memorable librarian has become overwhelmed with her own sourness. Kayser’s brown sugar may be the antidote!